Locked in in a fight with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc over fifth in the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship, Lando Norris joked that he might fancy brake-testing the Monegasque in his bid for fifth.
The focus of this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the season finale, maybe on the title fight between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen that has gone down to the wire with the pair entering the final race of 2021 even on points.
But other drivers, despite not fighting for top honors, are having their own fights and targets for their season, two of those being Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris who are currently fifth and sixth in the Drivers’ Table only four points separating them.
Previewing the upcoming race with his team Norris said: “I’m looking forward to Abu Dhabi after a disappointing weekend in Saudi Arabia.
“I think we deserved a lot more and hopefully that luck turns this weekend.
“It’s a new layout at Abu Dhabi, so I’m excited to try it out,” he went on. “We had a good one there last year, hopefully we can end the season strongly there again this year.”
Brake testing someone costs only 10 seconds
Speaking during the press conference ahead of the race, Norris and Leclerc were asked how they plan to approach their final fight this weekend.
Always the joker, Norris said: “I’m going to do a brake test on him, it’s only a ten second penalty.”
That was the Briton’s way of giving his take on last race’s crash between Hamilton and Verstappen, were the Dutchman was found to have slowed down excessively prompting the seven-time World Champion to crash into the back of his Red Bull, and earning a post race 10-second time penalty.
“No comment,” however, was Norris’ more serious reaction to the incident, with Leclerc not disclosing anything more than: “I think Verstappen did go a bit over the limit.”
The Monegasque went on to say of his chances this week: “The last few races we were pretty strong.
“We just had some bad luck lately, but the pace was good.”
Which doesn’t seem to faze Norris who responded: “We were pretty good here last year.
“That was one of our better weekends and we were only two tenths off the pole position time.”
Fight with Norris is still wide open
In Ferrari’s press release, Leclerc re-touched on the target to keep his fifth place in the Drivers’ Standings away from Norris’ reach.
“The fight with Lando (Norris) is still wide open,” he said. “Clearly, I’d like to stay fifth, but most of all I want to enjoy myself.”
The Ferrari ace continued to reflect on his team’s season-long fight with McLaren for third in the Constructors’ Standings, something they have succeeded in up to now as they sit third, 38.5 points ahead of the Woking-based outfit.
“It’s been an intense season, which has seen us make constant progress and the fight for third place, which has come good in the final part of the year, is proof of that,” Leclerc explained.
“We will get a taste of next season in next week’s test, and I can’t wait to get stuck in to this new adventure,” the 24-year-old concluded, as he looked ahead to next season, that will feature an array of changes, including radically different cars built to a new set of aero regulations along with low-profile 18″ tyres for the first time.